IMHO most Australians advocate:

(i) identify where slaughter done to Australian standards and ASAP resume supply ;

(ii) identify where slaughter NOT done to Australian standards, confirm these producers MUST satisfy these standards before they can import again ;

(iii) results for both above should be published for all to see ;

(iv) Provide a logo to identify products produced which satisfy these higher standards, also encourage Indonesian consumers to support these products.

How many Indonesian sites inspected ?

Results of these inspections, with date inspected and by whom

Banjo, thanks for your kind words. The funny thing is, I haven't
even sold to the live trade for years. But I do understand the
industry, especially in WA, and its vital importance to agriculture
here.

Fact is, Bob Brown will still get his generous pension, even if
through his ignoranace, he destroys thousands of livelyhoods and
jobs.

None of these people have every had to get a gun out and shoot
livestock because there was nowhere for them to go and no food.
None of these people have faced a local processor who knows that
he can offer 20 bucks for a ewe and the farmer has no choice but
to sell, as shippers are only buying wethers of the same weight,
for triple the money. Processors won't pay a penny more then
they have to, the live trade keeps them honest.

We have a Meditarranean climate here in the West, unlike the East.
So inevitably livestock need moving at the end of the season,
live shippers can do it. Processors cannot, workers don't want
seasonal work, they want year round jobs. We have created some,
by doing lambs for the US etc, which is where my lambs go. But
it doesent work for merino stores, which is what the live trade
buys.

I've seen around two thirds of the farmers around here leave the
industry, as they could not make the figures work. If those farms
arn't producing, there are no golden eggs for everyone else. That
is exactly why the Australian sheep industry has dropped from
170 million to 68 million, in just 20 years.

I find it interesting that Morganzola seems to only care about
the wellbeing of Australian livestock. When I make a suggestion
that we could be assisting other livestock in the third world with
our technology, he is clearly not interested. Yet we blow 4 billion
a year on foreign aid. A mere 10 million or so could make a dramatic
difference, as I've suggested on the other thread.

This beef fiasco just perfectly highlighted the utter stupidity of some citizens of Australia. Other countries' citizens must have blurred vision from tears of laughter when talking about Australians.

I can't understand why the government had to totally ban the live export of beef when so many people depend on the exports. From what was on the news it seems that only a small number of abbatoirs were at fault. Why not simply ban the export to those that don't comply to our standards? I too was horified when the story first broke on television. However, after watching Q and A on Monday evening - as Bob
Katter stated - Australian farmers will pay a very heavy price for this decision by the government. Have the Greens forced this decision on the government? It makes no sense for a Labor government to risk the wrath of the cattle industry.

Hi Belly, thanks for the kind comments :)

This is something that frustrates me hugely - the whole debacle has been completely one-sided. It would take very little effort and expense for the government to engage someone respected within the industry (or hire a current Australian inspector), to inspect and report back which facilities were upto scratch or likely to be so in a very short period of time and then restrict sales to any other facility. Introduce heavy fines right the way down the system for trading outside the rules. As others have suggested, bring influential mullahs from the worst offending areas to Australia and show them how a humane (and cost-effective) halal slaughter can be done. There are a MYRIAD of solutions that would not only reinstate the Australian trade, but help bring up to standard practices right across Indonesia. Apparently its ok to torture a cow so long as we didnt breed it in Australia.

Yabby as usual is spot-on in his analysis. If there was a dollar to be made in opening local abbatoirs, someone would be doing. In the rural industries at least, there are still plenty of people with an entreprenuerial spirit. The fact is that there is not enough regular supply, regular demand, workers prepared to live in relatively remote locations, sufficient feed supply for feedlotting etc to make this viable. I was always taught that the most environmentally responsible thing to do was to use the land to its best purpose (dont try to crop in poor soils in marginal rainfall areas, for example) - this trade and industry has developed to where it is by following that ethos and working within the environmental, social and economic constraints that it has to deal with.

TV 7 MATE is showing "Mighty Ships of the Sea" which features the BECRUX shipping 16,300 head of stock from Darwin to Indonesia.